Scoutmaster Musings - New Zero Heros

Scoutmaster Musings

New Zero Heros

The troop went skiing this weekend. We camped in a 'lodge' at a scout camp and drove to the ski hill. A 'lodge' is a large open room with cement floor, not to be confused with a 'ski lodge'. This one had some thin mattresses to toss around too.

On Friday night it got down to -11F so two intrepid scouts earned their Zero Hero patch. They slept in a tent and did their patrol cooking. Myself and another adult also earned the patch, but we slept in a tent because it seemed more comfortable than the 'lodge' anyway. Now, I'll have an old Viking Council version and newer Northern Star Council version.

One scout working on his First Class cooking requirement led his patrol in cooking pancakes on a dutch oven lid. After some hassles with stoves and freezing wash water, I think quite a few scouts figured out that dutch oven cooking makes sense in very cold weather. All the adult meals were dutch oven and we had very little clean-up to do and no cooking pots to scrub.

Hopefully, we'll have equally cold weather in February when we actually go on our Okpik winter campout. The last few years, it has not dropped below zero.